In a battle to the death between a cougar and a pit bull, most would probably bet on the cougar.
But that was not the case for a lucky four-year-old pit bull named Bruce that took on a cougar, narrowly escaping with its life after the cougar sank its teeth into Bruce’s head.
A small and quiet dog, Bruce was attacked by what conservation officers believe was a cougar on Thursday in the woods near Powell River on the Sunshine Coast.
Bruce’s owner Ron Smid, a landscape photographer who lives in a secluded area, said his brother Milan Smid was looking after two of his dogs, Bruce and another pit bull named Shyla.
His brother let the dogs out of his van to run the last half kilometre of road before reaching his house. But Bruce ran off into the forest. Smid said his brother drove around looking for Bruce, calling out his name.
Then he saw the dog tear out of the woods “running for his life.” Bruce was bleeding and had clearly been in some kind of fight, he said.
But it wasn’t until later, when the vet shaved the dog, they realized the extent of his injuries.
“What he has are puncture wounds from a very large cougar that apparently ambushed the dog, swallowed the head, held the head and tried to crush its skull,” said Smid. “It had its claws on both sides of the dog’s body, and had dug its nails in to hold it still as it tried to break the skull of the dog.”
Smid said Bruce, which he describes as a runt-like pit bull, somehow pulled its head out of the cougar’s mouth.
“He has big scratch-like marks as if a fork was dragged down his forehead, and a big puncture wound as if a screwdriver had gone right down in the middle of his head, where the fang of the cat went into the head.
